They Called Her It
by AkatsukiLover465
Summary: Nitori Shuuichi just wanted to be a human. That's all she ever wanted.


**Author's Note: I cry every time I watch Hourou Musuko, and this was just an idea that ran through my mind while watching the episode where Nitori goes to school in a skirt and everyone makes fun of him. Because this is from Nitori's perspective, he thinks of himself as a girl, so his pronouns are feminine, and he admits at one point in the show that he thinks of Takatsuki as a boy, so her pronouns are masculine. This is a very emotional topic for me personally, so I tried to write it from an emotional standpoint.**

 **Also, I know that in the anime Nitori's feelings about being a girl aren't portrayed as strongly as they are in this, but I wanted to kind of see what would happen if they were.**

 **I know I've gotten complaints about the amount of repetition in my fics before, so I tried to not lay it on too thick with this. There's maybe one phrase that repeated, and that's only because I feel it's needed to tie the whole thing together. …And now I'm rambling. Sorry. Just read it, please. I don't own Wandering Son.**

Her footsteps, click-click-clacking pleasantly against the pavement, are steady and unfaltering. It's like Mako says: she's confident and brave at the worst times, and she's stupid but admirable for it.

She likes the way her heeled shoes sound on the cement, reminding her exactly what she's wearing—that she's dressed just like she ought to be.

But she can't enjoy it.

Takatsuki said that he felt comfortable when he came to school in the proper uniform—dress pants and a tucked in shirt instead of the skirt that they want him to wear—but that was somehow different. People stared at Takatsuki. People stared at Sarashina, too. Not like this, though.

Her stomach rolls, because she's used to people not knowing who she is when she dresses like this, used to strangers treating her like she's just another girl. But no one's staring at the other girls who are in skirts. She's a girl in a skirt, too, just like all the rest of them, so why do they stare at her?

 _Don't look at me that way._

Then the teachers see, but they don't act like they did when Takatsuki wore a tie, or when he wore the boys' uniform.

They're angry.

They're disgusted (she can see it in their eyes).

And her name is suddenly Nitori Shuuichi again, and she is a Boy, and she stays in the nurse's office until her parents come because no one can bring themselves to look at her without being sickened (not even Takatsuki; he doesn't understand properly, not really. Maybe he never did.)

And even though Takatsuki (he is so kind, even if he doesn't truly get it) has armed her with his name, and she declares loudly that her name is Yoshino, not the stupid not-hers boy name they keep trying to call her, they will not listen. She insists quietly that she and Takatsuki had traded names not so very long ago, and _they refuse to understand_ , and she's so frustrated that it hurts.

No one wants to admit that they're wrong.

Takatsuki and Sarashina had been comfortable in button-up shirts and slacks, they had told her so. But she can't feel the same way about the skirt, the same one she's worn since the beginning, that should feel familiar and reassuring but doesn't.

Because with every step she takes, someone stares. With every word she speaks (voice deeper than before and sometimes breaking: they're all older now and it's to be expected, but she hates it all the same), someone laughs, even if what she says isn't meant to be funny.

And it hurts all the worse when they stop calling her 'he' or 'she', and call her 'it', because she isn't even worthy to be considered human, anymore.

She wonders fleetingly how Yuki ever managed it.

No one ever talks to her, anymore. Except Takatsuki, but he's been with her through the good and bad, and couldn't leave if he wanted to.

Sarashina wants to talk to her, but the other girls won't let her, for fear that they'll lose their social standing if their leader talks to 'it'.

Mako confesses that he always was jealous of her anyway, and doesn't speak to her, either.

"Freak," they call her when she passes them in the hallways (all except for Sasa and Mako—they're too kind, but she knows that they're thinking it).

And, worst of all, when she approaches anyone other than Takatsuki-kun, they run away, like they're scared of her.

Like being the way she is is an infectious disease that they can catch just from being near her.

Like she isn't even worthy to be considered human, anymore.


End file.
